Saturday, January 30, 2016

Now the
word of theLordcame to me saying, “Before
I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated
you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” Then I
said, “Ah, LordGod! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”But theLordsaid to me, “Do not say, ‘I am only a
boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever
I command you. Do not be afraid of them, for I am with
you to deliver you, says theLord.” Then theLordput out his hand and touched my mouth; and
theLordsaid to me, “Now I have put my words in
your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and
over kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to
build and to plant.”

Know
what kind of conversation I enjoy? When somebody tells you how they got into
their life’s work.

Garret
Keizer was finishing up a masters degree in English degree. He was thinking
about going for a Ph.D., or perhaps law school. But the door that opened before
him was a high school teaching job in northern Vermont, so he signed a contract
and prepared to move. He was from New Jersey, so the move to a little town
about ten miles south of the Canadian border was going to be a huge adjustment.

For
some reason, not entirely obvious to himself, he stopped on the way for a few
days in an Anglican monastery. The peace and quiet haunted him, and a couple of
chance conversations seemed to get under his skin. At the end of his stay, he
drove up to the part of Vermont that they call the Northeast Kingdom, and began
to teach.

It
went well enough. He and his wife settled into the community. Garret started
going to a small Episcopal church, where he befriended the priest, Father
Castle. Father Castle was a sixties radical. He marched with Dr. King, took
part in an anti-war mass at the Pentagon, and got arrested standing by the Baby
Jesus at the crèche of the National Cathedral. Now he was the part-time pastor
of two little churches in towns that nobody could find. He coached the high
school football team, and he became Garret Keizer’s friend.

At
one point, Father Castle said, “You’re a good writer. Why don’t you write a
sermon and preach it?” It was northern Vermont. They don’t have a lot of comparison
shopping up there. Garret said, “Sure, why not?” He set out to write a sermon,
then preached it, and thought, “I love doing this.” One thing led to another,
and he became the part-time lay priest in Island Pond, Vermont, an old railroad
crossroads town of six hundred souls.

In
fact, the Episcopalians eventually had to create a job title for him, over some
argument. They didn’t have part-time lay priests, but they did have a little
congregation that they couldn’t find anybody else to serve, so that’s what he
did. He taught high school English on the weekdays, preached and led worship on
Sundays.

His
story is now many years old, but it’s a story that we hear more and
more. It’s difficult for little churches out in the country to pay their bills,
much less find a preacher or priest. Churches that have wanted to continue into
the future have had to find fresh ways to make it work, even when the officials
in their denominations have blanched. Along comes a guy like Garret Keizer, who
wrote a master’s thesis on the poetry of George Herbert, and somehow God
connects him to Christ Episcopal Church of Island Pond, Vermont.

As
he said, it was the furthest thing from his mind and it made all the sense in
the world.

In
the opening chapter of Jeremiah’s book, the prophet remembers how he became a
prophet. God spoke to him somehow. We
don’t know if it was a big dramatic vision or the growing sense of what he
would be doing with his life. I know, this is a Bible story, and we would like
to think it was a big dramatic vision, but believe me when I tell you that big
dramatic visions are often short on details. They don’t map everything out.

What
Jeremiah recounts is a series of moves that are typical of most people who are
trying to sort out what they must do with their lives. They get a sense that
God knows who they are, what they are good at doing and what they are capable
of doing. Then they get a sense that life has prepared them somehow for the
task set out before them. And then when it hits them, they say, “No way! Lord,
you have the wrong person.” Then somehow God overcomes the resistance and gives
them the work to do.

That
basic plot repeats itself over and over in the stories of the Bible. God says
to ancient Abraham and Sarah, “I’m going to make you parents of a great
multitude,” both of them laughed (Genesis 17:17, 18:12), and the baby came anyway.
It was the first time they realized God was going to get his own way.

Moses
heard God calling out from a burning bush. God said, “I have heard the cries of
my people suffering in slavery, so I am sending you to lead them out.” Moses
said, “Lord, I don’t talk pretty enough.”

Isaiah
had a vision of God calling him preach and said, “Woe is me!” (6:1-8).Apparently
he knew what was involved. Simon Peter talked back to Jesus in a fishing boat,
and ended up saying, “Get away from me, Lord, I’m a sinful man” (Luke 5:1-11).

The
apostle Paul writes from his prison cell to a young man named Timothy. He’s at
the end of his time, and has been trying to nurture Timothy as a leader. He
says, “Don’t let anybody put you down because of your youth, but set an example
for believers in speech and conduct, in love, faith, and purity.” (1 Tim. 4:12).
It is the same thing God says to Jeremiah in our text: “Don’t say you’re only a
kid. I have work for you.” Apparently God never hears any new excuses.

What
we encounter today is the mystery of God’s call. Somehow God may get through to
us, grasp our attention, remind us how completely we are known, and then God calls
us to serve in a way that intersects with our identity, our experience, our
abilities, and the preparation that has been coming our whole life. The call
God has for you is different from the call God has for the person next to you.
All of us are different, but the call can come.

I
like how Garret Keizer says it, from the pulpit of his Vermont church. “By
being a lay minister, I can remind my parishioners that the practice of our
religion will take place, for the most part, outside the church building. This
is an obvious truth… but it is a truth that can be obscured by clerical
professionalism. Fell-time ordained clergy often tend to remake parishioners in
their own image… (We can’t) ignore the vital work people do in their own homes,
communities, and places of employment.”[1]

He
is exactly right. The purpose of our baptism is not merely to serve on a church
committee or tidy up the pews when the service is over, even though these tasks
are important too. In the largest sense, God’s call is living out the Gospel in
the world. It’s living with faith, home, and love in the real world where we
live and shop and work and babysit and make meals and clean them up and try to
get along with our neighbors and loved ones.

It
is often the case that’s where the real challenges are. When we take faith into
the real world and out of the comfort of the sanctuary, that’s when we stumble
over our words, or grumble that we are too young, or too old, or that we don’t
know what to say and we feel totally inadequate. Jeremiah says it for us. God calls
us to serve a world where the needs are a lot bigger than we are.

In
fact, if you think the tasks on your plate are difficult, consider what
Jeremiah is called to do. He is called to speak to his country of Judah of how
God will send them into exile. For forty years, he’s going to tell the truth
about God’s people serving false idols. The rich have ignored the poor in the
name of greed. The powerful flourish on a network of lies, and everybody in the
nation, he says, “have forgotten how to blush.” God called Jeremiah to say all
of that.

You
can imagine how it turned out. The prophet was attacked by his own brothers. He
was beaten up by a priest, imprisoned by a king, thrown into an muddy well by
politicians, and denounced by the happy preachers who said, “We have to shut
that guy up and get everybody to look on the bright side of life.” If you ever
think you have a lot about your life to complain about, read the book of Jeremiah.

And
it’s Jeremiah who said, “God, you got me into this! I can’t even get out of it.”

But
it is God, in the midst of our real feelings of fear and inadequacy, who
touches our lips and gives us the words, and declares, “I am with you. This is
my work. I’ll get you through this.”

There’s
a woman who found herself taking care of her next door neighbor. It didn’t
start that way, but Mary needed some small repairs done in her kitchen. She was
getting forgetful. So Janet started stopping by. They built a strong
friendship, and Janet helped out Mary however she could.

But
then Mary got very sick. The doctor said she didn’t have a lot of time. Janet
was bringing her meals, sometimes even spending the night on the couch and
getting up whenever Mary needed her. It was wearing her out, and to make
matters worse, Mary’s son wasn’t paying any attention to his mother. Janet knew
him, but didn’t like him. He seemed
self-absorbed, unable to express any care for his mom. He would drive in once a month, stay for an hour and look
awkward, and drive home, while Janet took care of his mother.

One
day, she said, “I let him have it.” She had prepared Sunday dinner for Mary and
her son. Mary couldn’t keep the food down. Her son looked up from the New York
Times while Janet was cleaning up the mess. “You know, I can’t do this anymore,”
she said to him. “She’s not my mother, and this is not my responsibility.” He
looked at her, stunned, and then he pulled on his coat and left.

Janet
apologized to Mary and helped her get into bed. Then Mary clasped the wrists of
her friend, looked into her eyes, and said, “I couldn’t do this without you.”

As
Mary slept, Janet sat in the living room, sobbing. The lights were out, it was
dark, and she was all by herself. She exhaled a deep breath, and said, “God, I
guess you are telling me that this is the work I have to do right now. So you
have to give me the strength to do it.”

A
month later, at Mary’s funeral, she stood and said, “What a privilege it was to
love my friend and care for her until the end.” What made all the difference?
You know what made the difference.

If
God is going to set important work before us, then God must give us the
strength and tenacity to do it. I think we can expect that of our Lord. Life is not going to be easy much of the time.
Speaking the truth, working for justice, loving our neighbors – none of that is
easy, but it is some of the work God calls us to do.

Look
at Jesus. His first sermon was a failure. He goes to the hometown synagogue,
opens the scroll, reads the ancient words, sits down, and says, “It’s coming
true today.” Everybody smiles and says, “We love our Jesus.”

Then he tells them
two stories out of their own Bible, of how God showed compassion to people who
were not like themselves. Suddenly the air turns scarlet and they want to kill
him. They drag him out of the synagogue, down the street, down to the steep hill
on the edge of their town, and they get ready to dash him over the side.

Luke
says that was his first sermon. And Jesus slipped out of their grip so he could
keep preaching more of those sermons. Was he a failure? No. Because he did what
God wanted him to do.

It
is a mystery how God calls people like you and I to serve. Maybe we started
teaching because the teacher didn’t show up. Maybe we offered somebody a ride
and a whole new world of need presented itself. Maybe we spoke to the teenage
whose name we didn’t know, and discover she needs a grownup friend. Maybe you
deliver flowers to a hospital room and discover somebody needs you. Maybe, to
your surprise, you learned that you were going to become a parent. Maybe in a
time of crisis, others want you to speak up for them.

These
are the matters that God sets before people every day. In the need, we hear the
Voice. In the task, we are strengthened by the Hands we cannot see. That’s how
the call of God can come.

And
that’s how the work of God gets done.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

[1] Garret Keizer, A Dresser of Sycamore Trees: The Finding of
a Ministry (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1991) 67-68.

Saturday, January 23, 2016

All the people gathered together into the square before the
Water Gate. They told the scribe Ezra to bring the book of the law of Moses,
which theLord had given to Israel . . .So they read from the book, from the law of God, with
interpretation. They gave the sense, so that the people understood the reading. (8:1, 8)

It
had been a long time since anybody there had heard the Bible. That is the
premise of a recent movie called “The Book of Eli.” It takes place thirty years
after a nuclear war. A loner by the name of Eli has the last existing copy of
the Bible. A Voice in his head has directed him to take it to a place where it
will be safe.

Well,
if you have seen any of those post-apocalyptic movies, you know what is going
to happen. Eli will have a difficult time of it. He will be confronted and
attacked by any number of bad guys. And when one of those bad guys discovers
Eli has a Bible, when that bad guy believes the Bible can be used to manipulate
the remaining people of the civilization, he’s going to do whatever he can to
get it.

Eli
is well-equipped to guard the book. It’s almost as if he is supernaturally
protected. But alas, the bad guy gets the book. When he opens it in his lair, he
discovers it is written in Braille. To everybody’s surprise, Eli is blind!
Meanwhile our hero has made his way to Alcatraz Island, where a monastery has
been formed to preserve music, art, and literature. Eli has memorized the
scripture. So he recites it, the monks write it down, and the ancient text survives
as its protector passes away.

It’s
a fantastic story, for all kinds of reasons. And the main reason I like most is
the love that Eli has for the scriptures. He’s like one of the ancient scribes
in the Bible stories, someone who treasured the scriptures so deeply that he
committed it to his heart. He’s like Jesus, who can find his way through the
scrolls of the prophet Isaiah. He knows the text. He can find it and read it.

Another
reason why I remember that movie is because it reminds me of the story of Nehemiah.
Nehemiah was a cup bearer for the king of Persia. He was still there, long after
his fellow Jews returned from Babylon. You may remember, the Babylonians sacked
the city of Jerusalem in 587 BC. They torn down the walls around the city, they
pulled down the temple in the center of the city, they took all the riches from
the city, and they stole all the smart people and enslaved them in Babylon.

It
was an apocalyptic time, and it felt like God had dropped a bomb on his own
people. But the exile didn’t last forever, and the people of Israel trickled
home. Some of them did, at least. And when they got there, everything they knew
was in ruins.

Fast
forward a number of years, and that’s where Nehemiah comes in. He is a Jew, he
is still in Persia, and he hears the reports of how the homeland is a pile of
rubble. It upsets him greatly. In a gracious move, the king sends him back to
his ancestral home to rebuild Jerusalem. With efficiency and dispatch, Nehemiah
oversees the rebuilding of the city.

And
then comes the moment in our story. The scriptures are re-opened for the first
time in anybody’s memory. The people of the Bible had gone a long time without
their book. So Ezra the priest reads the whole thing to them – at least, as
much as they had compiled in 445 BC, or whenever it was.

The
psalms weren’t all edited yet, and the book of Daniel wouldn’t be finished for
a while, but they had the heart of it – the Torah, the stories of Abraham and
Sarah, Jacob and Joseph, Moses and the Exodus, the Ten Commandments, the
stories of the wilderness and the coming into the Promised Land, King Saul and
King David, and a lot of other kings hardly worth mentioning, the prophets
Elijah and Elisha speaking the fire of God, and the other prophets who spoke of
the collapse of the nation.

The
people leaned forward to listen to it all. Most of them hadn’t heard the Bible
in years, some of them had never heard it at all. And when they did, there was
a wave of emotion that swept through the great crowd. They were hearing their
own Book, as if for the first time; and through their Book, they were hearing
the Voice of God. Nehemiah says the people were weeping.

I
don’t know if anybody weeps when all of us gather for worship. Oh, sometimes
somebody might cry out, “Is this sermon ever going to end?” Trust me, the
preacher has often felt the same way. Weeping might feel like an unusual
response to the opening of scripture. There have been occasions when packs of
Kleenex have been found among our pews, but it doesn’t always happen on a Sunday.

And
if it does, why all the tears? Nehemiah doesn’t say. The verb he uses is “bakah,”
a Hebrew word that means “to shed tears.”

The
tears could be tears of grief. After all, if the people were listening to the
early words of Genesis, they heard God say to the heavenly courts, “Let us make
all people in the image of God,” and as they look around and see the
deprivation and destruction, they see how low God’s own children can fall. The
Bible offers a long record of one moment after another where people fall short
of heaven’s intent.

By
Genesis 3, Adam and Eve are hiding. By Genesis 4, one of their sons kills his
brother. By Genesis 6, God says, “I’ve had enough of this,” and decides to wipe
out the whole planet with a flood. So I imagine the battered Israelites, gathering
in a rebuilt Jerusalem. They hear the story of how the people of God keep going
off the tracks, and I wonder if that prompts the tears. Nehemiah doesn’t say.

Maybe
the tears aren’t tears of grief. Maybe the tears are tears of hope. If you
listen to the Bible, there is hope on every page. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve
hide, but God finds them, and then God makes them clothing (3:21). In Genesis 4,
Cain kills brother Abel, but God confronts him and puts a mark on his forehead
to protect him (4:21). In Genesis 6, God wipes out the world with a flood – but
saves Noah, his family, and all the animals needed to re-populate the earth.
Then God drops his arrows and puts his bow up in the sky, as a reminder to
never do that again.

Listen
to the Bible carefully. Whenever there is a description is something terrible
that happens, there is usually an accompanying signal that the terrible thing
does not have the last word. After all, the prophets said, “Jerusalem is going
down, the Babylonian armies are coming,” but now, these people are back home in
Jerusalem! I wonder if these might be tears of hope.

But
you know what I believe? I believe these are more than the tears of grief or
the tears of hope. Certainly there is some grief, certainly there is some hope,
but there is something else going on.

Like
the day when one of the little girls in my house got all jumbled up inside. She
was doing well in second grade, but she was overwhelmed by some mean kids she
thought were friends. One day she exploded into tears. So I swept her up in my
arms and held her. When we both were able to take a breath, I whispered, “What’s
wrong, honey?” She shivered and she shook. Then she blurted out, “I don’t know.”

Ah,
I know those tears. Those are the tears of availability. Do you know those tears?
They come when you don’t know what else to do, when all the feelings swirl
around like a tornado, when you can’t keep everything corked up any more, so
you let it all out! That is the moment when we are most available to God. The
Jerusalem city walls may have gone back up, but the emotional defenses of the people
were cracked open. So they were ready to hear God speak.

And
it was just one of those moments.

What
I find so helpful about this story from Nehemiah is that Nehemiah knew it wasn’t
enough to just have a Bible. Certainly there was a Bible, and it was read all
day to people who had never really heard it. The Bible is our central book.
When the Presbyterians first formed in Scotland, they had a special person who would
parade the Bible into the church. He was called the “beadle,” and he got to bring
in the Book. The Bible is our book. But Nehemiah’s
story has more than a Bible.

There
was also the moment, the really Big Moment of opening the Bible again for the
first time. When Ezra the priest opens the book, it was an enormous worship
service. To hear the story, it was quite a pageant. The people are saying “Amen,
amen.” They are raising their hands. They are praising the Lord. Ezra has six
Levite priests on his right and seven Levite priests on his left. The Bible is
opened in the middle of all that. But it was more than a Big Moment.

It
wasn’t enough to have a moment, it wasn’t enough to hear the Bible. What made
it a Holy Event is that the people who were there “understood” the Bible. As
they leaned forward, in tears of grief, hope, and availability, the leaders
interpreted the Bible to them. In addition to the fourteen Levite priests,
there were thirteen more. Nehemiah gives us a list of all twenty-seven
impossible names. And their work was to teach, and interpret, and to “give the sense”
of what was read to the people, so the people would understand it.

That’s
why this story is so helpful. It reminds us of what most of us already know - that
we can’t read the Bible and instantly understand all of it. It takes work to
understand the scripture. It doesn’t come naturally. Understanding the Bible
requires study of the mind and conversion of the heart. It’s entirely possible
to read a passage and miss the point.

Like
the bad guy in the movie, “The Book of Eli.” He wants Eli’s last possible copy
of the Bible so he can control and manipulate others. That’s not what the Bible
is for. The Bible is not a club to hit people over the head and bludgeon them
into obedience.

No,
the Bible points us toward God. It is given to us in the thoughts and the languages
of the people who wrote it down over the course of a thousand years. And when
people of faith decided which books to keep, they also preserved it through the
ages, and translated it into the languages of new generations and peoples. And
today. Nehemiah gives us the clues of what the Bible can do:

·It
names our grief at what we have been and what we have been through,

·It
awakens our hope in the grace and power of God,

·It
invites us to make ourselves available to God, the living God who stays with us
in deep wisdom and redemptive mercy.

So
it helps to have the book opened to us. That’s why we want our preachers to
have an education. That’s why we want our Bible teachers to be prepared. That’s
why our church has an education program. That’s why we find ways to study the
Bible together. That’s why we honor the scholars who spend their lives studying
the book and opening it to us.

We
know why this is important. Left to ourselves, we will be confused by a book
that is both deep and exasperating. How many people pledge to read the whole Bible,
but check out early because the story is just too thick? We have public figures
who claim to love the Bible, but don’t know the right way to pronounce “Two
Corinthians.”

And
there is our own resistance to open our hearts and minds to texts we have
always heard. As one of my teachers used to say, “A lot of people who say, ‘Well,
here we go again,’ have never been there the first time.”[1] We
must be available to God every time we approach this book.

That
brings us to the other story for today, the story of Jesus giving his first
official sermon in the Gospel of Luke. It’s the Sabbath day in Nazareth, home
town of Jesus. He goes to the synagogue, “as was his custom.” It’s the same old
synagogue, with the same people he has known all his life. He gets up to read
the Bible lesson, and they give him the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. Same old
scroll, they have heard it before.

He
finds the place where it is written, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to
preach good news to the poor,” to announce release to the prisoners and proclaim
God’s jubilee year. They smile and nod, for they have heard that text before.

Then
he says, “Today is the day. This is the day of God’s favor.” He opens the
scriptures to them. Pretty soon they understand all too well that it is another
Holy Moment, that God has come to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the
disturbed.

After
all, if anybody has the dust blown off their Bible, if anybody hears the scriptures
opened in a way that God is honored and the people can understand, when the
dust settles, they will not be the same people they were before.

Saturday, January 16, 2016

For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, and
for Jerusalem’s sake I will not rest,until her vindication
shines out like the dawn,and her salvation like a burning torch.The nations shall see your
vindication, and all the kings your glory;and you shall be
called by a new name that the mouth of theLordwill give.You shall be a crown of beauty in the
hand of theLord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.You shall no more be termed Forsaken,and your
land shall no more be termed Desolate;but you shall be
called My Delight Is in Her,and your land Married;for theLorddelights in you, and
your land shall be married.

It
was a trick that all the eighth graders thought was hilarious. Get a substitute
teacher, and everybody assumes another name. If a seating chart was left in the
top drawer of the desk, sit in somebody else’s seat. When attendance is taken
at the beginning of class, speak up when your assumed name is call. The
unassuming teacher calls on John to do a math problem at the blackboard, and
Tony stands up to do. Everybody snickers. In eighth grade, that’s a lot of fun.
Pretend you are somebody else when the person up front calls your name.

Sometimes
a future bride and groom will come in and chat. On the checklist of chores to complete
around the wedding, perhaps one of them wants to change their name. In the old
days, the wife took the new husband’s name. Now it can go any possible way.
Sometimes the merger leads to hyphenated names. Or they keep their original
last names, but every other kid gets one of their last names. In fact, I know a
wife who dropped her first husband’s name, went back to her birth name, and
then got re-married but didn’t take the new husband’s name. In any case, you
can go to www.hitchswitch.com and they
will handle all the necessary changes for only $59: voter registration, driver’s
license, Social Security, IRS, passport, and magazine subscriptions.

These
days, of course, a name can be taken from you. A couple of winters ago, my
daughters took me to see a movie called “Identity Thief.” They said was a
comedy, but I didn’t think it was funny at all. A Denver accountant named Sandy
Patterson, a man, had his identity stolen by a con artist in Florida. He gave
her all his personal information over the phone as she was supposedly selling
identity theft protection. Then she uses his credit card to buy jewelry,
clothing, and a brand new TV. Why does she do it? Late in the movie, she
confesses she grew up in a lot of foster homes and doesn’t know her real name. Bad
breaks have stolen her name.

Today
Isaiah gives us a poem about names. Last week, we heard the prophet declare how
God says, “I have called you by name, and you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1-7). Today
it’s another occasion in Isaiah, and God says, “I’m going to change your name.”
Three times, in fact, God changes the names.

Why
are names so important? In Hebrew thinking, a name is more than identification.
It’s the essence of one’s identity. In the Garden of Eden, Adam (the earth
creature) names all the animals. God makes something, brings it to Adam, and
Adam names it, “I’m going to call that a cow. I’m going to call that one a blue
jay. That one over there looks ridiculous, so I’m going to call it a platypus.”

One
day God made something special and brought it to Adam. Adam said, “I’m going to
call that an elephant.” God said, “There’s no such thing as an elephant,” and
Adam replied, “Well, sure there is.” God said, “Why are you going to call that
an elephant?” Adam said, “Look how big it is!” By naming all the animals, Adam
could exert authority over them, or so he thought. If you know the name or give
the name, you have power over it.

That’s
why it is extraordinary that, centuries later, Moses comes along, looks toward
God, and says, “What’s your name?” Moses knew this was the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. God had been around a while, and Moses said, “What’s your
name?” God said, “Yahweh,” which means “I am what I will be,” or “I will be
what I will be.” It’s kind of an elusive name, mysterious, slippery. But as someone
once quipped, once God told Moses his name, “God hasn’t had a peaceful moment
since.”[1]

The
truth of the matter is that people can nag God all they want, but God has bigger
concerns than our small matters. In Isaiah 62, the poet picks up on a long prophetic
tradition of referring to Jerusalem as God’s “wife.” She was an unfaithful
spouse who chased after others, as the prophet Hosea declared. The prophet Jeremiah
(2:1-4:31) described the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians as a broken marriage.
The book of Lamentations (1:1-21) describes Jerusalem as an abandoned woman
weeping over her fate.

Yet
now, in the concluding chapters of the prophet Isaiah, God is going to take her
back. The Babylonian Exile is over. The sinful people will be forgiven and
restored. And here is how the poet describes it:

For as a young man marries a young
woman, so shall your buildermarry you, and as the
bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

And
to seal the promise, God says, “I’m going to change your name.”

It’s
not the first time God declares this. The Bible is full of names that have been
changed. It happens a lot, so many times that we remember only a few
highlights:

Abram (“father”) becomes “Abraham”
(“Big Daddy of a Large Multitude”).

Simon, son of John, is
renamed by Jesus as “Rock,” (Petros, or Peter).

Saul, named after the first
king of Israel, is knocked off his high horse by the Risen Christ, and later
rebranded “Paul,” a Latin name that means “Pee Wee.”

The
names are changed because the people have changed. God gets busy in their
lives, and they are no longer the same.

It
still happens. Down in the red rocks of New Mexico, there’s in a monastery off
the paved road. On a Sunday morning after worship, you can talk with the guest master.
His name is Brother Andre. He took that name after he committed himself to a
lifetime of prayer. I didn’t ask what his name was previously. Doesn’t matter,
for he is a whole new person.

Or
years ago, when I first struggled with God’s hand on my own life, wondering if
I was hearing the call correctly, the Presbyterians assigned a mentor. Her name
was Rebekah Elowyn. The first time I met her, somebody nearby said, “Oh, that’s
Mary Lowe.” She corrected them gently and said, “My life has been transformed by
God and I am a different person.”

Her
story is revealing. It seems that some time in her forties, Rebekah came to
terms with abuse she had suffered as a child. As a way to survive, she shoved
the pain down deep, but eventually it bubbled back up. With the help of a
therapist, she named the trauma and was able to move through it. For the first
time, she felt healed and whole. She was a new person, and the best way she
could celebrate her new identity in Christ was by changing her name.

So
God looks at Jerusalem, his bride, and says, “I see you differently. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand
of theLord, and a royal diadem in the hand of your
God. I shall rejoice in you like a young man on his honeymoon.” And then the
name is changed:

You shall no more be termed Forsaken,

and your land shall no more
be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in
Her,and your land Married; for theLorddelights in you, and
your land shall be married.

But
it doesn’t stop there. God’s love for Jerusalem spills out through the land. It
is intended for everybody. The healing, the health, the justice, the
reparations – it is given as a gift to all the people that God loves. With some
urgency, God declares:

Go
through, go through the gates, prepare the way for the people; build up, build up the highway, clear it of
stones, lift up an ensign over the peoples. Say to daughter
Zion, “See, your salvation comes . . .”

Then it happens again. God renames the
people:

They shall be called, “The Holy People,The Redeemed of theLord”; and you shall be called, “Sought Out,A City Not Forsaken.”

I
hope you realize this is more than poetry. This is transformation. It is what
God wants for you and for me, for our families, our loved ones, our church, our
community, our commonwealth, our country, our planet. God wants to take full delight
in us, to know us and enjoy us forever, to make things right, and to heal what
has broken.

That’s
the abundant life that God wishes for all of us. Not abundance in having a lot
of money, or climbing to a higher rug of power or ability, but an abundance of
well being. This is salvation in the largest biblical sense. Salvation is not
only a rescue from sin, although it is that. It comes with a clear sense of
health in every sphere of life. It’s when people treat one another fairly, it’s
when fear is countered with trust, it’s when emotional wounds are made well,
and it’s when racism and other injustices are removed. It’s our own arrogance
and pride that gets us in so much trouble, and it’s God’s persistent light that
chases away the dark.

Salvation
is described in that marvelous Psalm 103, which we heard a week ago in Jo
Conklin’s memorial service, and which we will sing as our very next hymn. “Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless God’s holy name. Bless
the Lord, O my soul, and don’t forget God’s benefits…” and then the benefits
come like drum beats:

God forgives all
your iniquity,

God heals all your diseases,

God redeems your life from the Pit,

God crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,

God satisfies you with good as long as you live

God works justice for
all who are oppressed.
(Psalm 103:1-4)

In
other words, not forsaken!

In
other words, not forgotten!

In
other words, redeemed . . . and therefore, renamed.

Our
work is to live into this, as God’s beloved people, as God’s emissaries to a
broken world. God will not rest until all things are rescued and made well. That
is the work of saving, begun by God, and undertaken by people who are not who
they used to be. The work is not done, but in Jesus Christ is is under way.

So
here’s an invitation for the redeemed of the Lord to look a good bit more
redeemed.

Sunday, January 10, 2016

But now thus says theLord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who
formed you, O Israel:Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by
name, you are mine.When
you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they
shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through
fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.For
I am theLordyour God, the Holy
One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your
ransom, Ethiopiaand Seba in exchange for you.Because
you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in
return for you, nations in exchange for your life.Do
not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east,and from the west I will
gather you;I
will say to the north, “Give them up,”and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far awayand my daughters from the
end of the earth—

everyone
who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory,whom I formed and made.”

Here’s
the line that I remember: “when you pass through the waters.”

The
Susquehanna River rolls through my home town. It rambles west, before turning
south and meandering through the Endless Mountains. When I was a kid, the big,
quiet river seemed quiet. Then in June 1972, a bad storm came through and
lingered, and the water spilled over the banks. The damage was unbelievable. Who
would think a gentle river would leave that much mud?

During
my college years, I took part in something called the “Great Owego to Nichols
Raft Race.” Call it a “celebratory event” in early summer. All the crazies in
town - and there were quite a few - would construct homemade rafts. The object
was to race nine miles downstream. If you had a Hibachi with burgers on your
boat, you didn’t have to be in a hurry. It was all done in good fun.

One
year, a few guys from my church built a Viking war ship and enlisted me on the
crew. Like the others, the ship was inspected very quickly and passed before it
ever actually floated on the water. It was a hot day, the beverages were flowing,
and not all the rafts stayed upright, although our Viking crew made good time,
arriving at the end right before a piece of plywood fell off the side of the
craft. It was a premonition. The whole event ceased a few years later due to
something called liability insurance. Apparently somebody sank and one of the
river pirates needed somebody to blame. It was decided the river was too
dangerous, if not too expensive.

Most
people can’t pass through the river. They drive over it and never get wet. Then
there are times the river gets everybody wet regardless. Four years ago, the Susquehanna
went wild again. Too much rain in September. Flooding closed the highways for three
days. My folks lived high on a hill, but the flood upset them greatly. When I
finally got through and knocked on their door, I asked if we could tour the
damage. Mom said no, but Dad thought he might be up for it.

The
dirty water was still high in some spots, which prompted a number of spontaneous
detours. On Front Street, closest to the river bank, we saw Victorian homes being
emptied, with water-logged antiques piled high on the curb. Through the village
we went, awestruck the destruction. We drove by John Spencer’s book store, a
favorite landmark full of valuable old texts. Outside, a front-loader filled a
dumpster with wet books. Dad said, “I’ve seen enough” and shut his eyes.

So
I wake up when Isaiah says, “The rivers will not overwhelm you.” I would like
to believe it. People around here still have their stories from the Agnes flood
of 1972. The 2011 flood that sopped John Spencer’s bookstore was simultaneously
swamping the Presbyterian church in West Pittston. Our good friends down there just
sold their damaged building right before Christmas, four years later, and they
have been nesting with a Presbyterian church on higher ground.

A
lot of us know what powerful waters can do. Indeed it can be overwhelming. Yet
God says, “Don’t be afraid. I am with you. You’ll get through this. You are
precious in my sight.”

The
river is a metaphor for all the deep waters of life. The metaphor is that
figure of speech that helps make emotional connections. I think of Psalm 69,
which begins, “Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck, and
there is no place to land my feet on solid ground.” We’ve had those moments,
haven’t we? The psalmist goes on to say, “There are a lot of people who are out
to get me.” It leads to a request, “Lord, get me through these rough waters.”

Some
hear Isaiah’s poem, and they remember how Moses and the Israelites escaped from
Egypt. Just as the Egyptian army bore down on them, God split open the Red Sea.
The Israelites passed through the waters, and their oppressors were washed
away. “This will happen again to you,” says the prophet Isaiah. “Don’t be
afraid.”

And
then the faithful go down to the river to see John the Baptist announce the
Messiah is coming. He says the old ways must be rinsed away, and the new person
will arise from the waters of baptism. So they line up and say, “Wash me clean!”
So he holds them under the water so that the old sinner in their souls is
finished off, and lifts them up as if they are freshly born from the womb of
God. That’s where some of our early Christian baptism practices began, with the
hope of John the Baptist, but fulfilled in the coming of Jesus Christ.

At
many baptisms, the ancient words of Isaiah are brought forward with deep
significance: “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you … because
you shall be precious in my sight, and I have called you by name.”

A
preacher named Tom spoke those words on the day my second daughter was
baptized. It happened right over there. I was keeping a firm grip on her
rambunctious big sister, while Tom took the baby into his arms. “What is the
name of your child?” Margaret Rose. “Margaret
Rose,” he said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and Holy
Spirit.” Then he quoted Isaiah, “Do not fear, I have called you by name.”

Little
did we know that just about two months after her baptism, we almost lost Margaret
Rose. One day, she stopped breathing in the crib and needed to be shaken awake.
That experience shook me awake. I didn’t sleep very well, either from my fear
of losing her, or from the constant presence of a monitor system that her
doctor prescribed until the circuits in her brain could grow more completely.

It
was the kind of moment that you have probably had too, where the faith that you
speak so easily and glibly is tested in the deeper waters of turmoil. And yet
the truth of the matter is, we do get through these things. The only way
through is through, and God gets us through.

That
little girl we were afraid of losing is now a college senior who sang here on Christmas
Eve. And when I told her I was going to tell this story, she said, “Why? That
was a long time ago, and I’ve gotten through it.” “Yes,” I said, “but that’s
easier to say now than it was twenty years ago.” She smiled and said, “Sometimes
it takes a little time to sink in, doesn’t it.” Especially if you’re a dimwitted
preacher.

So
Isaiah speaks this poem to a generation of displaced Jews. Their lives had been
disrupted by a flood of Babylonian soldiers who had invaded their country.
Everything familiar had been washed away. They doubted that the God who brought
them out of Egypt hundreds of years ago even knew they existed, so their
worship services were going through the motions. They questioned if they had
any future to look forward to, or if the coming days would be more of the same.
And God interrupts them by saying, “You’re precious.”

In
fact, if the words of Isaiah’s poem sank into the depths of our soul, then you
heard two words over and over again. In English, the words are “I” and “you”:

I have redeemed you - I have called you
by name - I will be with you

I am with you - I have traded others for
you - I will gather you home

I love you - You are mine.

See,
it is one thing to know the waters are fierce and threatening. It’s another
thing to know that our names are known, that we are loved, that we are precious
in Somebody’s sight.

A
friend told me about a minister who went to school in the south. When he was in
seminary, the president of the school was a very imposing man. He was a
spiritual and intellectual giant. He was not a big man physically, but his mind
and his piety were powerful. You can
even sense something of what he was like when I tell you his name: Dr. James
McDowell Richards. Well, the students adored Dr. Richards. They revered Dr. Richards. They held Dr. Richards in great esteem. But
they were a little afraid of Dr. Richards too. He was not a very approachable
man.

Well,
this minister graduated and went out to work in the church. He was a pastor in
one church, then the pastor of another, and then he took a call to become
chaplain at a nursing facility. As he looked over the list of residents, he was terrified to discover that the newest
resident was the now retired and infirmed and aged Dr. James McDowell
Richards. He had been terrified of him
in seminary and now he was going to have to be his chaplain and pastor.

Well,
he did the best that he could. He
visited Dr. Richards. He prayed with Dr. Richards. He read scripture with Dr. Richards. He led
worship where Dr. Richards was present. He tried to be his pastor, the best he
could.

One
evening, he went into the dining room of the nursing facility and there was Dr.
Richards having his evening meal, sitting in his wheelchair. His nurse was
standing guard beside him. He walked up and had an informal conversation with
him. Then suddenly, and he does not know to this day why he asked him this, he
said, "Dr. Richards, I've always wanted to ask you something." "Yes?"

"You
and your wife were the parents of sons."
"Yes."

"Did
you ever tell your sons that you loved them?" "No, I'm an
old-fashioned father. I didn't need to tell them. They knew. Well, one time, I
told one of them. I was in the hospital. I thought I was going to die, and he
came to visit me, and I told him. But it wasn't a regular thing."

"Well,
I just wondered, Dr. Richards. You know, my father never told me that, either. You
were like a father to us in seminary, and I just wondered if fathers ever did
that sort of thing."

The
meal was now over, and the nurse began to wheel Dr. Richards in his chair to
the exit. My friend watched him go, and
saw him signal suddenly to his nurse, and say something to her. She turned the
wheelchair around and brought him back over to my friend. Dr. Richards reached
up and touched his cheek and said, "Brian, I love you."

"I knew that all along," said Brian,
"but to hear him say it sealed it in my soul."[1]

Let
me tell you what happens in this room. This is where we hear God say, “I love
you, you are precious, you are mine.” No matter what deep water we must go
through, the God who loves us is with us. God will take our hand and get us
through to the other side.

(c) William G. Carter. All rights reserved.

[1] Thanks to Tom Long (who baptized
Margaret Rose) for telling this story.

Saturday, January 2, 2016

And the Word became flesh and lived
among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full
of grace and truth.

Christmas
came ten days ago. Pretty soon, there will be some tidying up. The tree will
come down, the lights and ornaments will go back in their boxes. The Advent
wreath will be dismantled and the base returned to the attic. The candles that
were ignited at 6:30, 9:00, and 11:00 were snuffed out, with the stubby ones
tossed away and the rest of them returned to a box in the closet.

And
now we can ask, “What was that all about?”

The
merchants and the malls are tallying up sales to see how they did. Our own
people tell me that we had nine more people here on Christmas Eve than last
year. I have a good number of my thank-you notes written, and all the gifts
under our tree were either relocated or consumed.

Ten
days later, we can say, “What has happened?”

These
are the days for chasing the deeper meaning of Christmas. The Christmas carols
have faded from the supermarket sound tracks, and Big Lots has put out the St.
Patty’s day decorations, with a few pink Valentines on the way. Our culture
jumps from celebration to celebration, without ever taking much time to savor
the holiness in the holidays.

So
what happened at Christmas?

No
doubt some will quote Isaiah: “Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given”
(9:6). With that, some will sing of “the little Lord Jesus, asleep in the hay.”
It’s an excellent word picture. Christmas is the child Jesus, born in the city
of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. Without the message of the
angels, however, the event would only be a child birth. And Christmas is much
more than that.

Today’s
text is a poem written about ninety years after the first Christmas. John has
had some time to think about it. He doesn’t mention a baby or a manger, or sheep,
cattle, and camels. In fact, in his entire book never mentions the mother of
Jesus by name; simply refers to her as “his mother.”[1] He
has other things on his mind. John wants to explore what all this is about.

That’s
not going to come quickly. Good theology doesn’t come right away. It needs to
cook for a while. And when John dishes up this poem, the church can chew on the
rich vocabulary and grammar.

Did
you notice where the poem begins? It begins at the beginning: “In the
beginning.” John dials it back all the way to the creation of the universe. At
that moment, the Word and God co-existed. They were one, they were distinct,
and they were together. The same God who spoke all things into existence,
declaring “let there be light,” is the God who created by using the Word.

And
what did God created through the Word? Life and light: they are the universal
gifts to all people. Everybody has life,
everybody has light. John says this is a universal story. It’s for everybody…
except that some people don’t get it. They should know where they come from,
but they don’t. They could welcome God when he goes to them, but they can’t.
There’s the human problem in a nutshell: they don’t know God, they can’t
welcome God - - and so they stumble around as if they are totally on their own.
This is what John suggests, and he will have plenty of stories to prove it.

But
what happens on Christmas, he says, is that God doesn’t settle for that. God
doesn’t leave people to stumble around in the dark. God comes to the world and
lands with human feet. The Word of God takes on skin and bones and breath. The One
who gives light and life to all things comes and lives among them. That’s
Christmas.

It’s
a confusing message for a lot of people. Either they are still in the dark
about the Source of their light and life, or they look at Jesus and say, “Are
you kidding? Is that it? A first-century carpenter with splinters in his hands?”
And to be fair, for most of Jesus’ life, he blended in. There was nothing to
distinguish him until he was about thirty years old, and he began to speak the
truth, and he began to heal those who were broken – and a world still shrouded
in darkness replied, “We can’t have this; we had better turn out the lights.” Which
is a way of saying the story of Christmas is still going on.

When
you pick up the paper and read about the terrible things people do to one another,
it’s because they have a hard time accepting that the light has come. When those
who know better lie and distort the truth about themselves, see this for what
it is: they are refusing the Light that casts no shadows. When those with the
world’s power plunder those who are vulnerable, they are denying that Life is
offered to them too. And heaven waits for earth to wake up and see the Light
and Life of God have come, right into our midst. We can have it here and now.

But
that’s a tough Word to keep straight, even for those of us who are the keepers
of Christmas. I noticed a line in a Christmas carol that I had not noticed
before. It’s the last phrase of the last verse of “Away in a Manger” – and it
says, “and fit us for heaven to live with thee there.” That’s not quite right.
It makes it sound like Christian faith is only concerned about the afterlife –
and that’s not true.

Jesus
is born here, lived here, was crucified here, was raised here, and says, “I am
with you always,” which certainly includes here. We don’t have to wait
until we die to live with him then. We can live with him now, and welcome him now.
The next time I sing that carol, I think I might change the words to accurately
describe the Christian life: “and fit us from heaven to live with thee here.”

You
see, here is the miracle of Christmas: this life matters. Our skin, and bones,
and breath matter. The way we go about our business, the way we care for our
children – it matters. We don’t have to wait until we’re done around here before
we can go to someplace holy. Christmas means the Holy has come right here. The
God who is Spirit has taken on human flesh. In Jesus, God has arms to hug, lips
to kiss, an appetite for good food and drink, and feet well-calloused from
walking. The Word became a physical, temporal body,
says John. So what we do with our bodies really does count.

A man I know tells about his wife teaching a year-long
study of the Bible. One week, the class was assigned to read the entire book of
Leviticus. If you’ve ever read that book, you know somebody had to get bogged
down. Indeed, when they gathered, one brave soul complained, “Why is God
concerned with how we prepare our meat, what we do with our livestock, and
women during their monthly cycles? Does God have nothing better to do?”

A wise old sage in the group spoke up, “I
loved Leviticus because of its excruciating earthiness. I’m glad God cares
about what goes on in the kitchen, bedroom, and bath because that’s where most
of us spend most of our time. God doesn’t just want my soul. I don’t have to be
in church to serve God. Even at the kitchen sink, God is with us.”[2]

Can you imagine what that means, that God is
with us? That God is so concerned with us that God actually arrives? It’s
sobering – because every moment of our lives can be bathed in his light, unless
we give in to our natural inclination to recede into the shadows. It means that
there is no place we can go to outrun the grace of God, no place so dark that
God can’t shine some Light somehow. Christmas means that human life can be
blessed and hallowed by the God who chooses to enter it.

Christmas means that, in the great human game
of hide and seek, all of us have been found. Our part is simply coming home
when Christ calls, “All-ee, all-ee, in free.”

That’s the heart of it, although some have
used more elegant words. I think of Saint Irenaeus, the second century bishop
of Lyons. He loved the meaning of Christmas. Here is how somebody describes
him:

At the very heart of his faith was a conviction that the unseen,
unknowable God who had created everything so loved humanity that he had become
a human being just like us. By becoming the human being Jesus, God wanted to
share with every human person his own, eternal life in such a way that our
fragile, contradictory human nature would not be overwhelmed or crushed, but
fulfilled utterly. All that we are was designed from the beginning for a
fullness beyond anything we could imagine, in and by communion with God.[3]

If there is one sentence from him that
I hope you remember, it is this: “The glory of God is a human being who is
fully alive and the life of humanity is the vision of God.”[4]

The full life is the life that Jesus has
always lived in the joy of eternity. It is the live he comes to live among us.
It is the very life that he offers to all who welcome him. So welcome him this
day. Welcome him in Word and water, in bread and cup – and get on with living
the marvelous life that he sets before you.